Advisory Tutorials

This has been a challenging season in many regards. Unfortunately, Taos Avalanche Center is shutting down. Thanks to all those that have supported and believed in providing avalanche education and awareness. Stay safe out in the mountains and if you ever want to talk about conditions feel free to contact me at andy@taosavalanchecenter.org or call me at 781-572-5631.

Was able to finally get good visiblility and made it up to 12,525'. No other naturals were observed but it was hard to see evidence of the natural from yesterday due to wind loading. Winds were light out the W but there was an hour between 10am and 11am where clouds rolled in, winds picked up and light precip started falling at ridgetops. This was the same time we were digging a pit up high and decided to get out of the alpine while the visibility was decent. An hour later and it turned back into a beautiful day. Probing around 12,500' on a NE aspect revealed snowpack depths in the 120cm to 170cm range. I wasn't able to conduct any stability tests but the overall structure of the snowpack for 120cm pit was showing 1F and P hard slabs making up 70cm's of the snow with 2 - 3mm depth hoar for the bottom 30cm and 20 cm wind slab mostly comprised of 4F on top.

Stability tests on lower down snowpit were similar to what we've been experiencing. Recent cold temps are really faceting out our snowpack.

Snowpit or crown profile photo or graph:

Snowpack photos:

Weather Observations

Blowing Snow:

Yes

Cloud Cover:

25% of the sky covered by clouds

Air temperature:

Below Freezing

Wind Speed:

Light

Precipitation:

Air temperature trend:

Wind Direction:

Southwest

Accumulation rate:

More detailed information about the weather:

A little bit of a mixed bag out there today. For the most part it was a sunny beautiful day, but there was an hour or so when clouds rolled in and light precip started to fall around 10 AM at ridgetop level.